ABSTRACT
Across the globe, urban childhoods appear in crisis. Children’s physical public spaces are shrinking as new technologies fill their leisure time with screens. The “obesity epidemic” is endangering children’s health, and parents are to blame for both under-and over-parenting. Underlying these moral panics, which occur and re-occur consistently throughout history, is the idea that there is a normal, natural childhood at risk in our modern society. Children and nature often share space in the urban landscape, thus they are often unproblematically, naturally, linked. Rural natures are further romanticized, and urban natures, the organic and nonorganic stuff of life, are excluded from consideration as important parts of global ecologies. This book challenges the dangerous assumptions of anti-urban lenses that view nature as external to the city. By looking at the relationship between urban nature and children from an ontologically different perspective, Children, Nature, Cities seeks to shed light on the actually existing urban natures that children live with in order to shift attention towards this important part of their lives, and improve future planning for children and nature alike.
